For the Girl Who Has No Patience
by Bruteaous
Summary: Two years post-Chosen. Faith gets a distress call from her half-sister and returns home to south Boston to settle an old score with a vengeful werewolf from her past. Might be part of a longer series. Don't know yet though reviews will definitely help me decide. ;)


_**Summary:**_ Two years post-Chosen. Faith gets a distress call from her half-sister and returns home to south Boston to settle an old score with a vengeful werewolf from her past.

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_**For the Girl Who Has no Patience for Bullshit**_

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The call had just arrived at an abandoned warehouse in south Boston. It used to be a storage facility for the steel brought in to make ships and its hollow rusting walls were graffitied as far as human hands could reach. The sun hadn't set yet, but it was hard to tell precisely what time it was outside as the grey clouds shrouding the city weren't giving any clues. All and all though, the day had started out promising to be one of the toughest days of her life.

_Faith arrived back at the house where her childhood nightmares had played out grudgingly, parking her black thunderbird storm behind a hedge and tucking her helmet into the Triumph's seat compartment before locking it behind her. If she left the bike for too long it would be vandalized or stolen, but Faith didn't plan on staying. The house looked the same as it had the last time Faith had seen it. White paint had gone grey and peeled off most of the siding, only clinging in putrid chunks at the edges like pigeon shit. The screen door had rust stains across it that peaked through the white paint like slashes of blood on a murder victim. _

_It had been forecast to rain this morning, but nothing had fallen yet. It was gloomy still outside though and aside from a group of sports logoed teenagers strutting by talking shit, no one was out and about right now, which was probably for the best considering Faith was of the opinion that the fewer people who saw you rush into a bad situation, the better. Especially when you were a slayer and you often had to run into bad situations which had a tendency to turn into messy crime scenes where the supernatural baddies dematerialized or melted away and their human victims were left to bleed a trail towards the exit. _

_This bad situation wasn't going to be like that though, Faith knew. Even vamps and scary otherworldly demons were smart enough to stay away from the home she'd been raised in and she couldn't blame them. If she hadn't of been raised there, she would've steered clear of the fucking place, but today was a special circumstance. Faith crossed the street at a slight jog and entered the house, kicking the locked screen door off of its hinges in the process. The door fell in on a small room with one stained couch and a rabbit eared TV flashing only static. The walls were made of that old wooden paneling that had been so popular back in the '70s and the carpet where it wasn't worn through was faded orange shag. _

_There were no lights on inside the house and it was eerily quiet. This would usually be enough to convince her that no one was home, but since being called as a slayer, Faith had learned that the obvious clues weren't the ones worth paying attention to. As if to back that up, a faint scratching sound echoed into the house followed by a bang. _

"_Marti?" Faith called, advancing into the small living room and listening. _

_The sound came again this time louder and with a direction. Faith turned down the short hallway leading to the basement and what she remembered used to be a storage room. The sound came again this time more insistent and Faith raced towards the hall closet door, which was shaking. She pulled on the handle and found her sister gagged, hogtied, and laying on her side. _

"_Jesus, Marti!" Faith breathed, pulling the gag out of her sister's mouth and untying the ropes, "What the hell happened?" _

"_They happened," Marti coughed. _

"_Who?" _

"_This group of guys," Marti groaned as her limbs were released from their bonds and started rubbing her wrists. "They burst into the house and started tearing stuff apart. They had paw print tattoos on their faces and when they found me they asked me if I was you and when I said no, they kicked me around until I told them that you'd left and had been gone for years. Then they threw me in here and said if I was telling the truth then I would probably die before anyone found me and that I'd better hope I was lying. They said if I saw you again before I starved to death to tell you that they were looking for you and you'd know where to find them."_

_Faith leaned back on her haunches and helped her sister stand and move out into the hallway. Marti was younger by about four years. Though dark haired and dark eyed like Faith, the two weren't actually biologically related and had only been raised as sisters. However distant, Faith had always cared for Marti like a sister whereas Marti liked to choose where and when she wanted to care. The young teen brought a hand up to wipe at her nose which had bled down her lips and chin. Seeing the blood only seemed to upset her more. _

"_This is all your fucking fault, Faith! Ugh, all our lives the only thing you were good at was fucking things up," Marti fumed, starting to cry. _

_Faith had to admit that was a true statement. Good things in their lives had never lasted long and sometimes she knew she had been the cause of the endings of those good times with some rash and stupid decision she had made, but not always. And now wasn't her fault. She'd been in Cleveland when she had got an anonymous call that whatever was left of her family was about to die unless she returned to Boston within the next two days. Since then she'd drove like hell, not even stopping at night, to get here and she had been too late anyway. Wasn't that just the story of her life?_

_Faith reached out to touch the other girl's shoulder, but Marti flinched away and started sobbing, stomping down the hall and shutting herself in a room. _Well, so much for a warm homecoming_, she thought. Faith moved towards the door she remembered as Martina's room and knocked, saying she was going to make these shitheads pay and that Marti needed to stay here until it was over, then Faith walked out of the house without waiting for a response. _

After that, she'd tracked them to this rundown warehouse where nothing other than trouble would hide. She didn't know who they were for sure, but Faith had her theories. Before she'd decided to leave Boston for Sunnydale to meet Buffy, Faith used to run in odd circles. They started out as circles of people who were tough or wanted to be tough coming from impoverished or neglectful backgrounds similar to hers, but becoming a slayer had changed the entire course of Faith's life, not least of all the people she knew and hung out with. Teachers had turned into watchers and acquaintances split mostly into either the undead or werewolf categories. Both weren't unusual for slayers to frequent, but in south Boston the Black Paw gang was the most nefarious of gangs. Faith used to hang with some of those guys and she knew that not only were they bad ass, they were also werewolves and proud of it.

And the attack on Marti had their stench all over it.

Faith threw open the metal door to the warehouse shedding light into the empty building. Others might have given up after not seeing any signs of life, but Faith's slayer senses were going haywire in this place and she knew something was up even if she couldn't see it. She sauntered slowly into the warehouse filled with nothing but large wooden crates surrounding her on three sides. Nothing moved right away and it wasn't until Faith reached the center of the room that she noticed movement above her. When she looked up, she saw a tall man standing on top of one of the crates, black paw prints tattooed onto both sides of his face. He was well-muscled and wasn't wearing a shirt, which was odd for an autumn evening on the east coast. The young man raised his head and sniffed into the air, then growled as his eyes finally settled on her.

"Marky Mark, how the fuck are you, you miserable fucker?" Faith greeted.

"Keeping things real, Faith you crazy bitch."

"Heard you called," Faith said, walking slowly forward.

She knew they weren't alone. Werewolves especially liked to travel in packs and this one—she knew from memory—had a gang of toothy cronies at his disposal. It was just a matter of where they were hiding and when they chose to come out.

"Yeah, it was quite a party." Mark said, jumping from one wooden crate to another slightly closer to the slayer. "You should'a been there, but then again I'm sure your sister let you in all the on fun we had together."

Faith's caustic smirk fell involuntarily as she took her hands out of her jean pockets and let them fall down loose at her sides.

"Gotta hand it to you, Mark, never thought you'd have the balls to look me up after what I did to your little vampire girlfriend. Under other circumstances I would feel bad about it, but your undead honey was cruising for a dusting feeding on helpless children."

Mark hopped down from a large box and did a small flip in the air, landing in a crouch on the cement.

"She was just doing what comes naturally to a vampire," he said, rising to his full height.

"And I was just doing what comes naturally to a slayer," Faith countered, spreading her feet shoulder length apart and stopping her movement forward as she settled into a ready stance.

Mark growled and rushed her, doing a flip to redirect his momentum as Faith stepped out of his way.

"And what are you doing now? Pest control?" the werewolf leader snarled rushing her again.

Faith took up a defensive posture and grinned, "You said it, wolf-boy, not me."

The slayer rolled out of Mark's way—a young man who ran surprising well on all fours for a human—but hey, he was a werewolf too so that sort of made sense. Mark barreled past her and only managed not to slam into one of the wooden crates against the wall by extending his fingernails into claws and screeching to a halt on the concrete. Meanwhile, Faith had leapt onto a box on the other side of the building, keeping her distance until she knew why this punk from her past was making an effort to go out of his way to go after her.

"You know, I've got no beef with your kind, Mark," Faith said, raising her fists and silently wishing she had decided to grab another weapon from the stash in her hotel room besides a simple switchblade—carried more out of habit than necessity—and the wooden stake in the snug sleeve of her boot that was always with her. "So why'd you do it? Why'd you terrorize Marti to get me here? I know it doesn't have anything to do with that vampire chick. Other than a good fuck she wasn't anything to you, you sort of gave that away every time you beat her."

"Oh no, this won't be that easy. You want information you have to work for it, slayer."

"It doesn't have to be this way, Mark. You can still come clean and walk away now and we can both forget this ever happened," Faith said, suddenly feeling the hair on her neck stand on end.

Mark stood up, his canines extending. "I don't think so, Faith. I've been waiting a long time to see you back here and today I get my just deserts. Up and at'em boys! We're having an old friend over for dinner."

The noise in the warehouse suddenly became unbearable as a cascade of hungry snarls rose from every direction. The loudness made it hard to distinguish how many animals there were, but there were enough to give Faith a good fight, she figured, maybe even enough to get her out of the good fight for good. So much for living past the 25 year slayer benchmark. Looked like Buffy would be the only slayer in two centuries to have that unusual honor. _Figures_, Faith thought.

The short moment of introspection was broken by a solid body slamming into Faith's abdomen and knocking her down the rest of the eight feet onto the concrete. She grunted as her head slammed into the pavement, the man's claws above her buried into her shoulders so she couldn't move. When she opened her eyes and the world stopped spinning, Faith could tell that his canines had extended and he was bearing down on her preparing to rip her throat out.

Action time.

She brought her knee up to crack into his breastbone, causing the young were to loosen his grip on her shoulders enough for his claws to fall out before he was punched upside the head and rolled onto the cement in a heap. The growling around her increased and Faith realized as she jumped to her feet that all of the remaining pack members had formed a quickly closing circle around her.

"What's the matter Faith? Slayer strength not all it's cracked up to be?" Mark asked pushing himself through the circle and meeting her in the center.

"What's this about Mark? You know I've got no beef with you or your kind so why come after me?"

"Oh no, like I said, it isn't that easy or that simple, baby."

Mark circled her leisurely, enjoying the moment too much to let it slide by. Snarls from the other pack members quieted and the young men, all of them shirtless and aggressive held their ground as their Alpha had his fun.

"See, I knew from the beginning you were special, Faith. Any human who can hold her own against a werewolf, even a young one, has more than just big balls in their favor, you know what I mean?" Mark said, wagging his finger at her as if he were a teacher lecturing her on recent bad behavior. "You remember that time when we were kids and Old Man Kinsey chased us out of his garden because we peed in his cabbage patch and we ran and ran so hard we thought our lungs were going to burn up, but we knew we couldn't go home or our dads would beat us into next week so we ran down to the docks and watched the freighters come in."

Faith didn't say anything to confirm or deny the memory, just watched Mark circle her, cautious of what his next move would be.

She did indeed remember that day in May when they were kids. Mark had grown up in the house right across the street from hers before he'd burned it to the ground as a teenager. Unlike Faith, he hadn't lived with one parent and a step-mother, but a grandfather who'd fought in Vietnam and liked to knock him around when he drank a few bottles of Jose and say Mark was the reason he couldn't retire from the unloading at the docks like all his buddies had years before. She'd felt bad for Mark growing up because his family seemed almost as screwed up as hers, but Mark had always backhanded pity in the face enough times to discourage anyone from feeling it for him so Faith had stopped bothering with it.

"Yes, I remember," she said.

"And it was chilly that afternoon for some reason, but not downcast or cloudy at all," Mark continued as if Faith hadn't said anything. "The water was grey-blue, I remember the color because we talked about how cool and weird it was that here we were leaning over water that is usually clear and we couldn't see the anything beneath it like in a one way mirror. Then you leaned over too far and fell in. I waited for you to come up and then when you didn't I ran for help. When I got back a tall, blonde woman had fished you out and was administering CPR. And when you woke up you said you felt peaceful and damn if you didn't sound like you meant it. I think about that day sometimes. In all my messed up life I've never felt peace. Funny huh? You were drowning and you felt it and I've never felt it. "

Faith swallowed hard, a lump of emotion she would never admit to under normal circumstances building in her throat.

"It doesn't have to be like this, Mark. You and I can just walk away from this," Faith said, almost to the point of pleading.

She didn't want to kill Mark. Sure he could be an unsympathetic bastard and a real psychopath when he wanted to be, but she still didn't want to kill him.

"You know, you keep saying that like it means something, but all I see is a lot of stalling. Don't worry though, Faith, I'll make sure your death is quick for old time's sake. Not painless cause where's the fun in that, but quick."

Faith pulled the switchblade from one of her boots, flipping it open. Mark had never been a guy to mince words and if he was spoiling for a fight, then Faith was going to defend herself. No matter how she felt personally about fighting him, she had no plans to die today. Without warning, Mark charged. Faith didn't move in time and his shoulder connected with her abdomen and knocked the air out of her. _Son of a Bitch_! Faith clung to his back as Mark rose on two feet and grabbed her by the neck flipping her over and down onto the cement where Faith landed on her back hard. Mark brought down a clawed hand and scored four straight red lines through her shirt and across her abdomen. Faith screamed and blocked the other hand as it came down with her knee.

_Already injured and by just one of them. You've been sitting on your ass munching Tostitos too long, Faith, _she thought.

Faith pushed Mark's arm off of her knee and kicked him in the face before rolling away from and kicking another attacking were behind the knee so he buckled and fell to the floor. Then she flipped to her feet slashing out at the Were she'd just kicked, carving a nice red swatch into his shoulder. The Were howled and Faith reached down into her pocket, pulled out a smoke grenade, pulled the pin, tossed it, and flipped up onto a crate. The smoke dispersed and the werewolves coughed as their eyes burned. Once the smoke had risen, Mark sniffed the air. He couldn't smell Faith's signature perfume and though he hadn't heard anyone leave or enter the building, he knew she was gone.

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_Thanks for reading. Hoping it was enjoyable. :) Please leave a review on your way out. _


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